Panasonic touts portable DVR, two-way CableCARD support

Devices with two-way CableCARD access could finally become a reality this year …

Comcast and Panasonic announced at CES a plan to fix the consumer TV-watching experience. The two are pushing a TV that can access two-way digital cable services without a set-top box and a "portable DVR" with a built-in LCD screen for watching shows on the road or in the kitchen. But the real news here isn't the particular announcements, it's the fact that CableCARDs will finally be used for two-way access and that cable companies are starting to get their way with consumer electronics manufacturers over the middleware included on new devices.

Let's hit the details first. The new DVR looks like one of those portable DVD players with a flip-up screen; it has a 60GB hard drive and a docking station. When docked, it functions as a traditional DVR. When undocked, all the content on the device is available for viewing. As for the television, we've heard of devices that will be able to make use of digital cable's two-way features like VoD and PPV for years, but products are finally starting to appear. The new TV will be a Panasonic Viera with built-in support for both CableCARD and cable's middleware platform, once called OCAP but now known as "tru2way."

New tech initiatives usually have two names, a geek-approved designation used during development and a marketing-friendly moniker designed to get consumers interested. The cable industry tech consortium CableLabs recently rebranded OCAP as "tru2way," but it's the same tech that's been in development for years.

Tru2way is a middleware stack that will be included in televisions and other consumer devices that make use of cable programming. It's based on Java and provides a common system for application development (cable companies can download apps like electronic programming guides into the device). Because apps are downloaded into consumer devices and run locally, it should be simple for cable operators to roll out features like games, web-type features such as online backing through the TV, e-mail access, even caller ID on the TV screen.

The system still relies on the physical CableCARD for decryption, but it makes now it easy to use two-way features. CableCARDs have always been physically capable of two-way transmission, but to date, host devices like TVs have not supported this functionality.

Tru2way still isn't here, despite years of announcements, but it should start appearing in products like Panasonic's Viera later this year. While Comcast supports the rollout, the whole point of tru2way is to let any device work with any cable operator. As operators upgrade their systems, the separate set-top box could become a thing of the past. Eventually, we expect the CableCARD to vanish too, replaced with a downloadable content access system (DCAS), but that looks to be even further off.

CableLabs believes that 90 million US homes will have access to tru2way by the end of 2008.